Copper Chronicles

The little hutch and two hens are sitting out in the freezing weather. Lessons from nature abound in the scene like the arrival of juncos from Canada. All winter tiny visitors enjoy what to them is like a Florida vacation to us. Mild climate! Our Canadian guests are quite grateful to be here which reminds me of the power of gratitude.  

I am grateful for the cold I say and grateful for the challenge each day of living. I am grateful there is something beautiful and powerful at work in this world even if it is difficult to describe in words (as often as I try).

When we speak what we are grateful for (even if our words do not exactly correspond with our feelings) our brains see a different reality according to neuroscientists. When you blow up in your mind what you are thankful for THAT becomes your reality. If you focus on what is wrong, what makes you angry or what inspires hate or fear, THAT becomes your reality. We can choose, the scientists say.

Perhaps the universe sifting America like wheat will prove to the world once and for all that BOTH these realities exist. Not just the worldview we learned in school or the one we see on TV. And, considering the rate at which the universe dismisses my assumptions about reality, there are probable multiple realities beyond my imagination just waiting for me to explore! Hence the Copper Chronicles. Life is more than caring for hens, mothers, and myself. And surviving. Clearly there is much more!

Two hens in a tiny hutch on a cold day. What possible happiness is there to find? I stuffed the hutch with heaping amounts of warm straw this fall and happily discovered the nest is flooded with white downy feathers. Layer upon layer, as they spend more and more time inside. It’s a royal arrangement for my two beautiful hens!

I can’t take credit for this of course. But I am thankful there’s no hen rebellion, picketing and rage. No hens threatening to burn my house down because of the inhospitable environment of winter. Humanity can learn a lot from nature, mom says.  

Lesson from hens: Nature provides nice nests!

The hens and I have reached a kind of symbiotic relationship. Possibly because everyone needs a mother hen, I think, as much as mothers and hens seem underappreciated in this world. It may be that tenderness and kindness is all that is left, after the chaos of cultural dissolution, war, political and economic shifts sift America like wheat. I may be the most fortunate one when it’s all over because I have a hen and an egg.

Rat has completed a tunnel system under the hutch so that he can sneak into the food dish undetected for a few bits. He was so happy in the hay I decided to study his nature. Then I may best gauge how to prevent any unhappy, destructive, or anti-symbiotic relationship that may arise.

I am not so hard-nosed to prevent a creature from feeding itself. That is every creature’s duty, Thomas Jefferson insisted we be free to pursue. Independence. Liberty. Rat proves he is much more than a creature to be kept in a lab.  

BF Skinner’s idea was that all nature (including human beings) may be conditioned by sensory input, a steady supply of affirming messages, programming essentially. Brainwashing is a better word although the scientists believed it was necessary for “our good” which makes it seem respectable. I think I prefer the other 20^th century idea, that government may make no experiment of its citizens without their knowledge or consent. Or compensation!    

I may be dabbling in natural science- to the degree that I study and observe the nature of creatures in their environment. But my ambition is limited to ensuring rat is free to do his business and not upset my hens so they can do theirs. I won’t be doing any brainwashing of hens or rats, thank you. Conditioning them to serve my will. I am not a psychopath!

Lesson from hens today: Know with whom you coexist

Honesty. My latest discovery is that being honest with myself is the only hope of salvation. I don’t mean honesty alone guarantees happiness. But being dishonest or pretending is the surest way to fail at being a human being. Or being happy. My other discovery is that nature serves to help me eradicate the erroneous ideas I possess by its non-cooperation with my expectations.

It is difficult to know ourselves when we live in a sanitized version of reality – one where we make the rules and are the ultimate arbiter of ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ of our behavior. That is like being the judge, jury, and executioner of our own souls. Who can then judge accurately? There must be a measure or gauge that is immune to our ability to delude ourselves. Otherwise, we may all imagine the most absurd things: That up is down, right is wrong, and 2+2=5.

Don’t feel bad about what I said: we all can believe ‘wrong’ things and delude ourselves. I don’t know where they come from exactly, but I do know if we “test” our beliefs in the world outside ourselves, we may find veracity in them. Or they may fall apart despite our best effort to enforce them. Sort of like Galileo dropping stones off the tower to see whether magnetic force would draw them to earth. We have to test them, and experience that our beliefs may sink like stones, too. Like my belief that having hens would be easy!

There seemed to be a natural order to the hen world last summer when Copper was alive. We were happy, I had an idea what I was supposed to do as the person, the assistant to the Mother Hen, Copper. Then calamity came, death. Despair, our security was lost. There was no happiness, only struggle and survival. Lately, I’ve modified my ambitions to survive a day. Happiness can wait!  

Then, I realized this useful idea: That happiness the way I defined it was impossible in this world. Happiness is like a feast, when all is in order, delights spread before you. Guests champagned! And fun-having commences with no rude interruptions or coarse remarks. It’s a holiday from the struggle and mayhem of the world outside. More like George Washington’s idea of festive and not George Constanza’s “Festivus”- the holiday set aside for the “Airing of Grievances.”

Happiness or what I had in mind as happiness was wholly dependent on things going my way. But I discovered happiness was not dependent on everything going my way. As Rat proved, everything going my way is certain not to happen that often.

Today, I experienced happiness because my hens were tough. I survived a few days, just doing minimal, maintaining my existence chores, like getting my door handle fixed for my car. Figuring out ever changing banking system issues designed to make my life easier, the claim goes. And, explaining to my mother repeatedly the difference between hens and roosters. It’s not clear why there is so much confusion on that issue.

I’ve not been overly worried about Rat sneaking some crumbs now and then. Seems like if the hens eat enough, the leftovers are up for grabs!

My hens are better off if they know how to survive, I realized, and not just living by my hand. So, occasions to free reign IN. Occasions away from full- food dish IN. Healthy snacks at routine times- Yes. Stagnation, daily grind, pathetic, helpless hens that can’t do anything like dummies NO.

I feel like I have grossly underestimated my hen’s resilience by overestimating my own importance in this relationship. Hovering hen mother, what an insult to my hen’s dignity!

Rules for Hen Mothers: Develop hen resilience!

Yesterday, I hemmed in an assumption that Rat served no useful purpose. As my journal entry subsequently proves, I am wrong again. I did qualify my statement about Rat, saying: “He serves no useful purpose that I can see.” Rocky, the Hen, taught me about “reservation” in an early Copper Chronicles entry. Reservation means qualifying your statements in case you are wrong. Rocky would be pleased!

Rat serves a few purposes so far, I notice. A useful deterrent to entitlement mentality. Yesterday, Rat jumping happily in and out of the hay pile was an unplanned challenge. “How dare life mess with my agenda?” My behavior I recognize is the inevitable conclusion of the “Me” generation. “Why doesn’t Rat realize I am the center of the universe and obey my will?” Suddenly who the interloper is in this scenario is less clear. Rat teaches humility.

Rat cleans up the messy crumbs my hens make. Another advantage. I notice he is not eating directly from the bowl, but rather gleaning around the edges for crumbs. Perhaps the hens taught him some manners, or maybe he heard my Winston Churchill speech and decided to modify his ambitions?

Rat made me laugh out loud, a good remedy for a head suffering increasing pressure. Laughing is like a volcano that erupts and sets your soul free from unrealistic expectations you have about yourself. I definitely need to laugh more.

This realization led me to understand something else. The stationary, the unchanging, the fixed way of going about life which may be ascribed as self-righteousness perhaps, can not be healthy. Hence nature creeps in to tangle with our assumptions. It ferrets out our weaknesses, it removes all our presumptions of entitlement clearly. That is a good thing!

And perhaps a “fixed” hen pen or way of life -without change- rigid, creates security but also breeds unhealthy interlopers. Actual interlopers I mean this time. If nothing changes in the hen pen for example, the rodents may become too comfortable! And invite friends and make more rodents! So, nature has a way of forcing our cooperation for our own good.

Stagnant environments, whether hen pens or minds, allow interlopers to breed and succeed.

Life Lesson for today: Know your interloper, even if it’s you!

My head feels like it is going to explode today NOT because I have Head Explosion Syndrome which would be an excellent excuse. My head is going to explode because, despite my best machinations, again, nature has defeated my attempts to tame it.

“Nature” is too big a word, I think. My attempt to outsmart Rat has been defeated. Rat is part of natural world – he is part of nature, but nature must mean myself, too? Right? As I am part of the natural world.

I find it confusing when people think of themselves as above and separate from the natural world and its inhabitants. It is likely easy to do, if we are not practiced at viewing our values and their effects on the natural world surrounding us and the other inhabitants in it.  

Barak Obama breathes the same air as do we all; Bill Gates wakes up by the same sun; the physical processes of wealthy man are the same as poor men, requiring similar sustenance and activity for good health.

The modern age is confusing because no one seems to be self-regulating. Seems like there is no system of thought in place to prevent the powerful from the most egregious errors. It’s like such people are flying blind.

For example, I felt rather certain that Rat served no useful purpose in my enterprise. He gives me the creeps because well, he creeps. He is designed to creep. He scavenges.

Scavengers serve a useful purpose, however. Perhaps I have been too hasty in my judgment? Squirrels gather maple seedlings every fall in my yard, for that I am grateful. Rat gathers crumbs at the hen’s food dish, food that may get soggy in the dirt and be wasted anyway. Ben Franklin insists “do not allow untidiness in appearance or habitation” because, well, the creepy things that ensue. Of course, that makes sense in retrospect.

The reason my head is going to explode is because, well, (I must admit this for mental health purposes. There is something redeeming about honesty) I put extra hay around the hutch to protect hens from the bitter winter winds. While I was doing it, I wondered whether I was overthinking this. Do hens naturally stay out all winter, carefree from cold? I doubt that is true.

Still, I had a sense of doubt about my actions which I reasoned to be not worth pursuing. Hay? What ill can become of a bit a hay?

Anyhow, the extra layer of hay has been like a Florida condo for Rat. He lives in the hay, rummages his way to the hens’ food dish, (scavenging crumbs on his way) then dives back in the hay pile. The happiest creature I have ever beheld! He has been doing this all day!

Has Rat left the dirty underground life in the shadows to live with the rest of us folks in the light of day? Who would think a rat would be happy? He is happy.

My head is going to explode. That is NOT what was supposed to happen.

Anyhow, the point is, if we cannot allow nature to do what it does sometimes, which is to defeat and humiliate us, then we are not being honest. If we are not honest we can not be good human beings. We cannot govern our own selves; we are certainly not capable of governing anyone else.

I do not know what will become of Rat, or the hens. But I think I better listen more carefully to the cautionary signals I experience. There is certainly more to this world than what my natural mind can logically explain.

And, to further repent of my snobbery to the sleek rodent, there is NOT a whole lot going on to be happy about these days. A rat having fun in the hay makes me happy, despite how much disapproval this will brook in all quarters.

“What a pleasure to have such gentle and beautiful creatures grace my yard with their presence,” I thought all last week.

This week, however, it is hens at war. The hens experienced their first attack- air bound predators- and fled for safety. Rats are raiding the hens’ food and deterring the hens from eating. The cold is weighing in heavier each day.

My pen has insufficient air cover. I was distracted by the glittering, glowing Van Gogh-like world we experienced last week. Add secure hen pen again to my long list of things to do: “Priority.”

If Copper was alive, she would chase rat most aggressively and it would NOT come back. Chip the Chipmunk learned quickly not to cross Copper.

I see value in Chip, the chipmunk. Chip is diligent about his work, a good example for us all. Chip chewed through the so-called “chicken security wire” reminding us to “test” everything we hear and not to accept claims at face value. Claims like: “Chicken security wire.”

Squirrels are orderly and ambitious, gleaning the ground of pine-cones every fall, reminding me to prepare for winter. They are expert and humble neighbors. In SHTF episodes, squirrels don’t knock at your door begging supplies. In fact, I suppose most squirrels are better prepared for a disaster than most human beings.

Rat has no value that I can see. It looks like a cross between a squirrel and a mouse. Not cute like a mouse, nor ambitious like a squirrel. Not friendly like Chip.

My internet search of rats turned up a freaky fact about flexible skulls, that can squeeze through tiny spaces. A runty, slithering, shapeshifting creature scaring my hens and stealing their food. My gentle hens shrivel at the sight of it! I am not judging. My select choice of adjectives alone is giving me the creeps. God help me if rat was eating my dinner!

So to encourage myself, I go to my list of sources:

What would Copper do? Get about getting rid of that rat. No question. It is my duty.

What does Pericles say? We do the difficult with the end goal of what we love in mind. (Of course, he sounded much more impressive and Greek- statesman-like than I do.)

Marcus Aurelius says: The obstacle is the way! We prove ourselves and our capabilities by NOT shrinking in the struggle of life, but rising to the occasion.

Winston Churchill viewed defending England in WWII with Emperor- like determination and courage. A willful, obstinate refusal to except defeat or failure for his people.

Neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf, says a brain is like a supercomputer. When you decide to accomplish a task, it goes about finding solutions to the problem. With your words you can “turn on” or “turn off” your brain’s awesome capacity she says. If I say: “This is too hard, I can’t do this!” Brain takes the day off.

SO, I have to say: the rubbery skulled, ugly thieves don’t stand a chance. If I have an inner Copper, an inner Pericles, inner Marcus Aurelius, I must have an inner Winston Churchill, too.

It occurred to me I have an inner Jesus, as well. Perhaps in future I may just go to the top for my example. Start there. (He being the embodiment of every virtue, all courageous acts, all-wise, all-merciful, kind.) Yes, I’ll start at the top next time. You can’t underestimate yourself when you have an inner Jesus!

Rats: Behold your Lord!!

My mom is carefully watching my two hens, hunting and pecking in the overgrown garden outside the kitchen window. The scene is a fulfillment of a dream, to see my mom enjoying the hens instead of watching the world she knew completely disappearing on the news. Hens are a happy diversion. She looks with eagerness like a small child in wonder and speaks of memories growing up when she had hens.

I’ve never been a mother or a hen, but I notice the instinct to be a mother hen. Mother and hens are happy today. Me, too. Copper would be pleased. She worked diligently everyday, caring for her friends, and enjoyed the fruit of her labor. It only lasted a few precious hours, however. Rats!

My hens are hiding out today which rather unnerves me. It is unsettling because hens have their own wills and don’t do what I ask, when I ask them. I discovered that in an earlier post. Hens are not cardboard cut-out characters in a story of my imagination. I do not exclusively own the narrative that is my life, neither do I make all the rules. That is called a “fantasy,” I believe.

In my head, hens are charming and agreeable pals and we enjoy adventures together. True. But in my head I discovered a not accurate idea: the fiction that anyone, hen or human being, should be what I want them to be, or do what I want them to do, when I want them to do it.

It is not clear why I am disappointed with my discovery. Nobody consciously believes that to be true. Do they? Except maybe politicians and CEOs.

Maybe human beings start off with an unformed idea of what life is like, then by education, religion, cultural agendas- for good or ill- their perception of ‘reality’ is formed. Or maybe the world imposes an existence so difficult that one cannot solve it by human strength or reason alone? Like children trying to solve complex math problems (unless you are a brilliant genius at math), people flounder. Finding meaning takes second seat to paying bills and putting food on the table.

Whatever the cause of us living in a kind of underworld of our making, where we make the rules and are accountable to no one is a fantasy and a lousy one. There can be no authentic love, no absolution, and no genuine liberty in that existence. There is only what our sensory perception and imagination tells us to be “real.” We have to look beyond our own selves and our own imaginations to find what is true, and beautiful and good!

Time to play “Find the Hens” now. My hens hideout is the most enormous, most prickly, most tangled chaotic bush in the yard. An overgrown forsythia the size of a swimming pool. I’d need a chainsaw to gain access. Fortunately Buffy is an oat enthusiast, and loyal Lady stays close by.

Time to come home hens! Oats!

My two beautiful hens, Buffy and Lady, gave me a needed lesson in resilience today. Snow, rain, and frigid temperature. They looked remarkable in the bitter wet weather, at home, like chickadees in winter.

Built-in to birds is a survival mechanism to handle winter. Chickadees not only survive but enjoy the icy landscape. Sometimes you can here them singing on even the coldest days. Likewise, the hens enjoyed this glorious, damp and icy day with effortless grace.

I am having  the kaleidoscope experience again- seeing the brilliant colors in an infinite array. The world is alive and ever changing. If you have the courage to see it.

I wonder if Van Gogh had hens who led him on journeys of exploration? Or perhaps he had a nervous mother with Head Explosion Syndrome like me? That may explain his frantic way of painting. That is not criticism of Van Gogh’s work, rather a tribute. He may have been frantic- a word that sounds related to ‘panic.’ But I think Vincent was breathless by the beauty he was experiencing and shared it shamelessly. Like every muscle in his body strained with feverish excitement. Like Leonardo de Vinci tried to capture Mona Lisa. But he doesn’t capture her entirely.

Vincent’s love of beauty seems innocent, without any buffering agent of vanity to confine his work. Leonardo may not have been able to ‘see’ Mona Lisa as she really was, because he did not want to see any disapproval of him in her eyes. (The painting exposes himself as much as it does her.)

I think her look in the famous painting is she and de Vinci calling a truce. He must content himself within his human limitations, avoiding pride and vanity, her timeless gaze advises. Isn’t that what women have done for ages? In Old English, “wife” and “wise” look like the same word. A bit of wisdom lost in the revolution, perhaps.

I wonder if the world is really as beautiful as it seems to me today, in this chilling experience of light, color, cold and hens! Or is the frantic nature of my experience right now heightening my sensory perception?

Seems like human beings have a built-in survival mechanism, too. The ability to experience beauty as an antidote to chaos.

Mom asked me an existential question today. She winged a Creamsicle at me yesterday and not because she thought I wanted one. I better pay attention to this, I thought. She is trying to say something. She was frustrated, speechless, unable to communicate what is going on inside. Finally she focuses her aim and says: “Why does evil exist??”

She has been asking me for years to explain that to her. She is asking the right question, I believe, too.

Why evil exists and how to think about it correctly and courageously may just be that which stills that roiling ocean that goes through all our beings. The one that drives people to insanity or to a lesser degree compels us to “get our house in order” like mom. Uncertainty can compel all kinds of behavior.

There are scientific explanations for human behavior like compulsive cleaning. Therapists offer “behavioral modification” techniques. Drug companies can help neurological problems in our brains, fortunately for me.

But the problem of evil isn’t solved by a scientific solution. This must be true because many evils in history were done in the name of science. Evil, uncertainty, fear are immaterial things. Scientists can not cure problems in this realm, despite all their theories and measuring devices. How does one measure Horror? There isn’t a pill for that.

So evil supersedes us- that is- it must come from somewhere that is beyond our material world and beyond our sensory perception. (And therefore we are subject to it to the degree we are ignorant of it.) The ability for us ‘to know’ that evil exists with our minds suggests our minds have been dramatically underemployed when it comes to solving the problem of evil.

My mother wanted to know why evil exists? What am I going to tell her? How do you define evil? She added to her focused interrogation: “And how do we decide what is evil or good?” Mom continues to describe her uncertainty and anxiety like this: “What is roiling in your guts? Is it love or fear or hate? What is That?? Would we like it if our behavior was reciprocated?? Don’t people ever think that?? Why not??”

When I wrote Hens and Mothers I was correct. Mom appeared to be experiencing this roiling, which is why I described her as an ocean storm roaring about our house. Organizing, reorganizing, so everything is some where else. Our home is like a kaleidoscope- every time you look in it, everything has changed around. Some days she’s like a bolt of lightening with crisp and terrifying criticism. Angst. Roiling, unresolved thundering that need answers.

We say mom is like a barometer in the weather as storms throw her off balance. Likewise, she is tuned in to another frequency when it comes to the struggles and storms of the soul.

What is the language of this realm of experience?

Evil must be a distortion or opposite or impostor of some greater reality. That is what I think. Fear, chaos, the ‘unknown,’ and the human behavior that emerges as a result proves their is a great gulf of knowledge in our world. Knowledge about the opposite of those things: instead of fear, love. Instead of chaos, order. Instead of confusion (and lies which create it) there is truth.

Last summer I enjoyed happiness with my hens Copper and Rocky, and my two gentle and beautiful hens, Buffy and Lady. And peace. But, Beyond all my best planning, tragedy ensued. Copper died and then Rocky. My storm began, my struggle. Like mom, I have been searching for words!